I think one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from being in a committed relationship that leads to engagement and then to marriage is how to tame expectations.
Before our wedding, it was important for my (at the time) fiancé and I to get some pre-marital counseling – something I highly recommend for all couples. It was a good realty check on the idea that he and I were planning for a marriage, not just a wedding.

Anyway, at the very end, we were asked if we still felt as though we were committed to the following: Loving our partner exactly how he/she is at this moment, whether or not he/she ever changes.  For some reason, this really hit home for me.   Of course I always knew that I loved my fiancé but I never stopped to think of it in this light. We, as women often have thoughts of something (if not a list of things) that we hope will change about our partner, whether we can completely admit it or not. Thoughts like: ‘When we get married, he’s not going to handle the money like that anymore.’ Or ‘I know that he isn’t super neat or organized now, but when we live together, it’ll be a little better.’

It’s the little things though – how he waits to do the laundry until there is not a single pair of clean boxers to wear, when you’d rather wash a weekly load or two to keep from falling behind on chores; how he pays all of his bills seemingly minutes before their deadline, when you’d rather pay them the moment they arrive in your mailbox; how he likes to spend Saturday sleeping in and being anything but productive, while you’d rather get up and out the door by 9am to get all of your errands run by noon.

These are preferences that shouldn’t make or break a relationship but can create a hostile coexistence if expectations are allowed to take over. Ask yourself this: ‘Am I marrying him for who he is or who I want him to be?’ Then, put yourself in his shoes. Would you want him marring you with hopes that you’re going to be different – new and improved – when you say ‘I do’? Of course not!

So, before you live one more minute of engaged life, take a second to commit to loving your ‘other half’ exactly how he is today, whether he changes or not!
That said, if there are substantial issues – such as moral issues – that you can’t accept about your partner now, then you may need to take a closer look at your decision to commit your life to this person, not at how you can change him!